Abstract
The designation of the black metal sound as “lo-fi” by academics is problematic, since it doesn’t reflect the contemporary black metal production. Field- work in the Québec scene show that the members designate their sound as being “in the middle” – or mid-fi as I advocate it. In this paper, I first define “hi-fi”, “lo-fi”, “authenticity” and “mid-fi” in the context of black metal. Then, I present different black metal sound aesthetic using audio extracts, frequency analysis, spectrogram images and ethnographic data. This analysis allow better qualify black metal aesthetic production today using the Québec scene as an example.
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